How Water Affects Your Milk Supply

Do you ever think about water when you buy a gallon of milk at the store? Perhaps you should!

Drinking water is very important to so many aspects of our lives, even a trip to the grocery store. Milk is composed of 87% water, so it stands to reason that cows drink a lot of water. Drinking water satisfies 80 to 90% of the water needs for a cow, so adequate water quantity and quality is very important.  

Like people, cows want good tasting water and farmers need to know about their water quality to maximize milk production as well as adjust the feed ration for their herd. Herd health can be adversely affected by poor quality water.  Testing water for consumption by livestock is an important first step for farmers. Penn State offers water testing packages for a variety of testing needs, including livestock. (The lab tests wells for people, too!)

One of the recommended Best Management Practices for agriculture is use of riparian buffers to keep the cows out of the streams. This not only improves heard health in terms of disease and better drinking water for the cows, but also has benefits for the home wells on the farm and water quality downstream.

Excluding cattle from streams reduces risk at calving time by reducing drowning and hypothermia in the new calves. Keeping the streams clean also reduces disease incidence in the herd, all expensive items for the farmer.   

So the next time you purchase a gallon of milk, think about the role of water in milk production.

Source:psu.edu